Most of the music by the artists interviewed here I only know since the album release reviewed before. With Stuart Wade it’s actually a little bit different. I know his music since he first surfaced as member of Think Twice. Waiting For You was my first record from Think Twice back in 1994 as Maxi CD release on EMI UK. Two years later and the album was finally released on Internal Bass Records. As far as I remember it was available before as Japanese import on Toschiba/EMI only. 1996 also saw the release of Down To The Bone’s debut album From Manhattan To Staten and the rest is, like they say, history. Those of you who are not familiar with Stuart’s music, will be pleased to read that you can listen to two hours of his music next Friday, August 5th, on my weekly internet radio show.
Meanwhile I hope you’ll enjoy the jazz-not-jazz interview with Stuart Wade.
How confident are you with the reactions to the new album so far?
Stuart Wade: I’m very happy with the initial reactions, so far. Most people seem to think it is the best album since Manhattan To Staten. I am glad about that as I feel the same, as with this album, I feel I’ve turned a corner and am more focused in taking the music in the direction I want it to go. I tried not to think about what other people would want it to be and am just doing it for myself. As I am my worst critic, I trust myself to do as best a job as possible. Luckily, so far, Narada are happy to let me do that. I was setting myself up for this album, by doing ‘Cellar Funk’, which helped to steer me this way. I have to be careful not to do things too radically, all at once, I feel I am going on a musical journey and hopefully, those who really like my stuff and understand what DTTB is about will want to come with me. The most important thing is that I am able to enjoy it as much as I can , as that is then reflected in the music. Without trying to sound too pretentious.
Q: On the Internal Bass releases you did some “additional programming” but never appeared on the list of musicians. Why can’t Stuart Wade be heard on DTTB’s music as musician playing an instrument that’s rather unusual for a band?
Stuart Wade: I think you have to look at what DTTB is. It’s mainly a project/production than a full time band. I’m not a musician but really a self taught producer with a lot of ideas which I either relay through others or record on to a Dictaphone for later use. I started this project without knowing how it would turn out, but as I had loads of ideas and was determined to try to make a change, I had to see what would happen. I never really thought it would take off, especially in the US, where my main success has been. I call in session musicians, usually the same guys, as I have grown to trust them and we have established, what I think, is a good working relationship. I then play them my ‘hummed’ ideas or explain what I want to create, as the idea evolves and they include ideas of their won we may then end up co-writing.
When the project started to become more popular I had to look at putting together a live band. Shilts, lead sax player and band leader, helped me to do this. The live band is not made up of the same musicians that I work with in the studio. Mainly because I don’t have the budgets to fly a full UK band over to play most of the one off gigs we get in the US, where most of the live work is. We don’t do full tours but mainly festival gigs, which are at the weekends.
>>>continue